Chapter 9 - Twelve Years Earlier
St. Joseph’s Hospital had smelled like burnt coffee and disinfectant.
Dominic remembered that.
He remembered sleeping in plastic chairs.
He remembered his father becoming smaller every day.
He remembered one young woman from food services who had once found him sitting alone at three in the morning.
He had not remembered her face.
Until now.
Dominic looked at Marin.
“You brought me coffee.”
Her eyes widened.
“You remember?”
“Vanilla creamer.”
Marin gave a stunned laugh.
“You hated it.”
“I drank three cups.”
“You looked like you hadn’t slept in a week.”
“I hadn’t.”
The memory returned.
A nineteen-year-old Marin carrying a cafeteria tray.
No wedding ring.
No Eli.
No understanding that the exhausted man in the hallway belonged to one of the most feared families in Rhode Island.
She had sat beside him for ten minutes.
Not because she wanted anything.
Because he looked alone.
Dominic stared at her.
“Why would anyone photograph that?”
Marin shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Carlo’s voice remained on speaker.
“There are other photographs from the hospital.”
“Of me?”
“Yes.”
“With who?”
“Doctors.”
“Rocco.”
“Your mother.”
“A priest.”
Carlo paused.
“And Charles Morrow.”
Dominic went still.
“I met Charles at the hospital?”
“There’s a photograph.”
Dominic searched his memory.
His father had received hundreds of visitors.
Businessmen.
Politicians.
Enemies pretending to be friends.
Charles could have been one.
Rocco spoke from the doorway.
“I remember.”
Everyone turned.
Rocco looked grim.
“Charles came twice.”
“Why?”
“He represented Harbor Atlantic.”
Dominic remembered the company.
A failed shipping acquisition.
His father had refused to sell.
Rocco continued.
“Antonio threw him out.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Isabella began writing urgently.
Dominic came closer.
She wrote:
CHARLES WANTED FILE.
“What file?”
She wrote:
MORETTI.
Dominic understood.
The archive.
Charles had known about it twelve years earlier.
“Why?”
Isabella wrote:
PROOF AGAINST HIM.
Marin asked softly.
“Against Charles?”
Isabella nodded.
Dominic’s mind sharpened.
“What did Charles do?”
Isabella wrote with difficulty.
PAID MORETTI.
Dominic stared.
Charles Morrow had financed his father’s enemy.
Back in 1998.
Possibly even the kidnapping plan.
Dominic looked at Rocco.
“Get Charles back here.”
“He’s secured at the boathouse.”
“No.”
Dominic’s voice hardened.
“Bring him to me.”
Forty minutes later, Charles sat in Dominic’s study.
His expensive coat was gone.
His tie hung loose.
For the first time, he looked exactly like what he was.
A cornered man.
Dominic placed the twelve-year-old photograph on the desk.
Charles looked at it.
Nothing.
Dominic slid another paper beside it.
A scanned memo Isabella had located in the private desk.
Charles’s name appeared beside a payment.
Salvatore Moretti.
Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
1998.
Charles closed his eyes.
Dominic sat across from him.
“Tell me.”
Charles said nothing.
Dominic waited.
Finally Charles spoke.
“I was thirty-four.”
“So?”
“I was stupid.”
“You financed Moretti.”
“I invested in a logistics deal.”
Dominic laughed coldly.
“Try again.”
Charles looked up.
“Your father was destroying me.”
“How?”
“He blocked permits.”
“Why?”
“Because I tried to take a terminal contract.”
Dominic stared.
“So you went to Moretti.”
“Yes.”
“And Moretti planned to kidnap me.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Do you expect me to believe you?”
Charles leaned forward.
“I gave him money to pressure Antonio commercially.”
“Commercially.”
Dominic repeated it.
“I didn’t know about you until afterward.”
“After what?”
“After your father found out.”
Charles rubbed his face.
“He nearly killed me.”
Dominic believed that.
Antonio would have.
“My mother stopped him?”
Charles looked toward the door.
“Yes.”
Dominic sat back.
Isabella had saved Charles Morrow’s life.
Charles continued.
“She convinced Antonio that killing me would start another war.”
“And you spent twenty-eight years repaying her by trying to steal her vote?”
Shame crossed Charles’s face.
“We needed the archive destroyed.”
“There it is.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“This was never only about the waterfront project.”
Charles shook his head.
“It became bigger.”
“Explain.”
“When Vivien started seeing you, I told her to end it.”
Dominic blinked.
“You opposed us?”
“At first.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew your mother might recognize my name in the old files.”
“She did.”
“Yes.”
“But Vivien loved you.”
Charles laughed bitterly.
“At least she said she did.”
Dominic stayed silent.
“She believed marriage could solve everything.”
“How?”
“If she married you, she controlled your access to the past.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“And when my mother objected?”
“Vivien panicked.”
“Then you created the partnership.”
Charles nodded.
“It gave us leverage.”
“And the forged power of attorney.”
“Yes.”
“Did you order my mother drugged?”
“No.”
Dominic believed him now.
Not because Charles deserved belief.
Because his fear was too specific.
“Did Vivien?”
Charles lowered his eyes.
“I told her we needed Isabella declared incompetent.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Charles looked up.
“I never told her how.”
Dominic stood.
Charles continued quickly.
“Dominic, Vivien is not thinking clearly anymore.”
“That may be the first true thing you’ve said.”
“She became obsessed.”
“With what?”
“You.”
Dominic’s expression did not change.
Charles shook his head.
“No.”
“You don’t understand.”
“She doesn’t want money.”
“She has money.”
“She doesn’t want the development.”
“She’ll survive without it.”
“She wants to win.”
Dominic stared.
Charles continued.
“Your mother rejecting her became personal.”
“Personal enough to threaten Eli.”
“Yes.”
“Personal enough to drug Isabella.”
Charles looked away.
“Yes.”
Dominic walked toward the window.
“What happens tomorrow if Vivien doesn’t get what she wants?”
Charles did not answer.
Dominic turned.
“What did she build?”
Charles looked frightened.
“I don’t know.”
“Charles.”
“She stopped telling me things two weeks ago.”
“What things?”
“The archive plan.”
“What archive plan?”
“She found someone in Geneva.”
Dominic went cold.
“She has access?”
“Maybe.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Name.”
“She called him ‘Lukas.’”
“Last name?”
“I never heard it.”
Dominic looked at Rocco.
“Find him.”
Rocco immediately began typing.
Charles stood.
“Dominic.”
“Sit.”
Charles sat.
“If she accesses the archive, she won’t just release it.”
Dominic looked back.
“What will she do?”
“She’ll alter it.”
The room went silent.
Dominic stared.
Charles continued.
“She said the truth isn’t useful unless it tells the story you need.”
Marin understood first.
“She’ll add documents.”
Charles nodded.
Dominic’s face changed.
False records.
False payments.
False crimes.
Placed inside a genuine archive.
No one would know where Antonio’s history ended and Vivien’s fabrication began.
“What will she add?”
Charles whispered.
“Things about you.”
Dominic’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
No voice.
Then a digital chime.
A message arrived.
One photograph.
Geneva.
A bank vault corridor.
Beneath it:
SEE YOU AT DINNER TOMORROW, DOMINIC.
May you like
Then a second message.
BRING THE RING.
